Marie Laveau

Marie Laveau, Copyright Denise Alvarado All rights reserved.

Marie Laveaux, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. For such an important figure in American folklore, very little can be known certainly about her life. She is supposed to have been born in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana in 1794, the daughter of a white planter and a black/Choctaw woman. She married Jacques Paris, a free Black, on August 4, 1819; her marriage certificate is preserved in Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. M. Paris died in 1820 under unexplained circumstances; after his death, Marie Laveau became a hairdresser who catered to wealthy white families. She took a lover, Luis Christopher Duminy de Glapion, with whom she lived until his death in 1835. She is said to have had a snake called Zombi, named for the African God Nzambi.

More than anyone else, Marie Laveaux put New Orleans Voodoo on the map with her powerful magic and infamous ceremonies held in what are now Congo Square, Bayou St. John, and Lake Ponchartrain. Oral traditions suggest that the occult part of her magic mixed Roman Catholic beliefs and saints with African spirits and religious concepts. She is believed to be born in 1794 in a French and Spanish City, where the Catholic Church dominated the lives of its citizens. She is celebrated every year on St. John’s Eve, the foremost Voodoo holiday in New Orleans. St. John’s day corresponds with the summer solstice. This same celebration has taken place for almost 300 years; many of those years in Congo Square.

 

Learn more about the Spiritual Traditions of Marie Laveau from Crossroads University.

Copyright 2013 Denise Alvarado, All rights reserved worldwide.

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